And a phone with a 1280x720 screen has 921,600 pixels to manipulate. A qHD screen is 960x540, or 518,400 pixels. Reality is that it takes alot more horsepower and memory bandwith to refresh a 720p screen. And though you minimize it, the difference in resolution is noticable in everyday use, not only under a jeweler's loupe.
I agree that I was harsh, but I did it to prove a point. Bashing in any form is infantile and I admit that I (knowingly) bashed the HTC, but only to prove my point.
As for benchmarks, when comparing one off-the-shelf device against another they are quite effective. I don't care what benchmark it is, if one device performs better using any benchmark over the other device, that's a representation of how much better it will perform when doing similar functions with real-world applications. Your saying a benchmark is useless is like saying that if I run Firefox on one device and it performs better than it does on another, it means nothing. If they are useless, why does everyone reviewing them use them?
Very good, you are (obviously) right. The number of pixels on the higher resolution screen results in more clock cycles of the graphics and main processors certainly. As for the difference in visible resolution, with the size of the screens being essentially the same, it's very difficult to detect by most, if at all.
At some point, there is redundancy in a real world scenario with the resolution for most, and it becomes a matter of what is more visually appealing. I've seen people sit in front of their pixelated computer displays with dot pitches of .28mm and complain about the displays on their phones with dot pitches less than half that. Lay your phone against your monitor screen and tell me it's not more fluid and free of any evidence of pixels or "looking through a screen" than the monitor.
Oh, sorry for the Dr. poke. It was perhaps distasteful, but I have a thing about people using monikers that imply any superiority, unless they truly earn them.